Once we were amused
at the ludicrous spectacle of a large bird of the stork family, which
had built its nest in a tree almost overhanging the river. The nest
was a collection of reeds and feathers, having two holes in the
bottom, through which the legs of the bird were hanging. The feet,
suspended quite a yard below the nest, made one wonder how the bird
could rise from its sitting position.
Every sight the traveller sees, however, is not so amusing. As
darkness creeps over earth and sky, and the pale moonbeams shed a
fitful light, it is most pathetic to see on the shore the dead trunk
and limbs of a tree, in the branches of which has been constructed a
rude platform, on which some dark-minded Indian has reverently lifted
the dead body of his comrade. The night wind, stirring the dry bones
and whistling through the empty skull, makes weird music!
The banks of the stream had gradually come nearer and nearer to us,
and the great river, stretching one hundred and fifty miles in width
where it pours its volume of millions of tons of water into the sea
at Montevideo, was here a silver ribbon, not half a mile across.
Far be it from me to convey the idea that life in those latitudes is
Eden. The mosquitos and other insects almost drive one mad. The
country may truly be called a naturalists' paradise, for butterflies,
beetles, and creeping things are multitudinous, but the climate, with
its damp, sickly heat, is wholly unsuited to the Anglo-Saxon. Day
after day the sun in all his remorseless strength blazes upon the
earth, is if desirous of setting the whole world on fire. The
thermometer in the shade registered 110, 112 and 114 degrees
Fahrenheit, and on one or two memorable days 118 degrees. The heat in
our little saloon at times rose as high as 130 degrees, and the
perspiration poured down in streams on our almost naked bodies. We
seemed to be running right into the brazen sun itself.
One morning the man on the look-out descried deer on the starboard
bow, and arms were quickly brought out, ready for use. Our French
hunter was just taking aim when it struck me that the deer moved in a
strange way. I immediately asked him to desist. Those dark forms in
the long grass seemed, to my somewhat trained eyes, naked Indians,
and as we drew nearer to them so it proved, and the man was thankful
he had withheld his fire.
After steaming for some distance up the river several dug-outs,
filled with Guatos Indians, paddled alongside us. An early traveller
in those head-waters wrotes of these: "Some of the smaller tribes
were but a little removed from the wild brutes of their own jungles.
The lowest in the scale, perhaps, were the Guatos, who dwell to the
north of the Rio Apa. This tribe consisted of less than one hundred
persons, and they were as unapproachable as wild beasts. No other
person, Indian or foreigner, could ever come near but they would fly
and hide in impenetrable jungles. They had no written language of
their own, and lived like unreasoning animals, without laws or
religion."
The Guato Indian seems now to be a tame and inoffensive creature, but
well able to strike a bargain in the sale of his dug-out canoes,
home-made guitars and other curios. In the wrobbling canoe they are
very dexterous, as also in the use of their long bows and arrows; the
latter have points of sharpened bone. When hungry, they hunt or fish.
When thirsty, they drink from the river; and if they wish clothing,
wild cotton grows in abundance.
These Indians, living, as they do, along the banks of the river and
streams, have recently been frequently visited by the white man on
his passage along those natural highways. It is, therefore
superfluous for me to add that they are now correspondingly
demoralized. It is a most humiliating fact that just in proportion as
the paleface advances into lands hitherto given up to the Indian so
those races sink. This degeneration showed itself strikingly among
the Guatos in their inordinate desire for cachaca, or "firewater."
Although extremely cautious and wary in their exchanges to us,
refusing to barter a bow and arrows for a shirt, yet, for a bottle of
cachaca, they would gladly have given even one of their canoes. These
ketchiveyos, twenty or twenty-five feet long by about twenty inches
wide, they hollow from the trunk of the cedar, or lapacho tree.
This is done with great labor and skill; yet, as I have said, they
were boisterously eager to exchange this week's work for that which
they knew would lead them to fight and kill one another.
As a mark of special favor, the chief invited me to their little
village, a few miles distant. Stepping into one of their canoes - a
large, very narrow boat, made of one tree-trunk hollowed out by fire -
I was quickly paddled by three naked Indians up a narrow creek,
which was almost covered with lotus. The savages, standing in the
canoe, worked the paddles with a grace and elegance which the
civilized man would fail to acquire, and the narrow craft shot
through the water at great speed. The chief sat in silence at the
stern. I occupied a palm-fibre mat spread for me amidships. The very
few words of Portuguese my companions spoke or understood rendered
conversation difficult, so the stillness was broken only by the
gentle splash of the paddles. On each side the dense forest seemed
absolutely impenetrable, but we at last arrived at an opening.
